


The oldest game

by arkytiorforemancampbell



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, The Cartmel Masterplan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2655650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkytiorforemancampbell/pseuds/arkytiorforemancampbell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all know how that nasty story with Torvic ended. Well, a version of it, at least. One may be left to wonder how it started...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rules of the game

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [beats me it's somewhere on his tumblr, it's the one about the telepathy lesson just ask him kk?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/84455) by thoscheiongallifrey. 



 

“Did you even get any sleep?”

Koschei shook his head disapprovingly, looking at the dark circles under his friend’s eyes. “What was it? Nightmares again?”

Despite looking like someone that needed a bed more than he needed air, Theta was beaming with happiness. “Not at all. I couldn’t get nightmares even if I wanted, given I’ve not slept at all. I’ve solved it!” - he pointed at the blackboard at the bottom of the classroom - which was still almost empty, as the students had not yet started to arrive for the lesson.

Koschei lifted an eyebrow, skeptical. “You mean you pulled an all-nighter over Professor Trewlrandax’s stupid challenge?”

“It’s not stupid!” replied Theta, looking quite hurt. “It was very hard. Even cousin Innocet said it was. It took us all night to demonstrate that theorem, even though in the end even Brax came to help. And it’s not like you solved it, anyway”.

“I don’t see why I should have tried to” answered Koschei. “I have better ways to spend my time than breaking my head over school work. And the same probably goes for every other student in this room. Though I guess this may have been a wise move from you, considering your grades...”

“I didn’t do it for the grades!” started Theta, but couldn’t quite figure out how to go on. Though in his mind it all made perfect sense, there was no way he could express his reasons to Koschei without looking like an annoying teacher’s pet - and anyway he would have rather eaten a pigrat.

He was spared the pain of an awkward silence by a familiar voice - though he would have rather faced the embarrassment if it meant not having to deal with the one that was coming.

“I bet you didn’t do it for the grades, mindmute” said Torvic with a wide grin. “Whatever it is you’re talking about. I mean, there’s hardly anything you can do about them anyway... am I right, Theta?”

He paused for a moment, to enjoy the waves of fear, rage and helplessness coming from the object of his fun. Most students of their age would have been able to hide such feelings, or at least keep them confined in their private thought-space, but not this one: the unusual lack of psychic abilities in the Lungbarrow kid was a source of endless amusement for the older student. “Oh, sorry” he went on, in his favourite fake friendly tone, “I mean Theta Sigma. You almost passed the last round of exams, right? It should show in your name, don’t you think?”

Koschei didn’t say a word. His tiny fists clenched, eyes downwards, he walked to his desk. Torvic’s grin widened in triumph, as he interpreted this behaviour as either fear of him, or shame for being friends with someone that had just been burned so hard by his superior awesomeness.

Theta knew well enough that the reasons were very different, so he didn’t feel betrayed in the slightest. He knew to which depth Koschei’s rage could go, and how much it cost him to keep it at bay. Despite the look of it, it was up to him now to protect his friend. Theta looked Torvic straight in the eyes and forced a smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t know. Maybe you want to wait till after the lesson, if you want to talk about my grades.”

Sure, Torvic scared him sick, but for once, it felt good to have an ace up his sleeve. Or so Theta thought. His newfound confidence was crushed a second later, when Torvic suddenly grabbed his face and pushed him to the wall behind his back - a bunch of student’s lockers got hastily out of the way all around him, scampering on tiny metal legs, like clumsy, square crabs.

“I thought I’d made it clear enough already” said Torvic, in a soft, calm voice, still keeping the other pinned against the wall by his face, and ignoring his blows and kicks like Theta was no bigger than a toddler, and not just a head shorter than him.// “I don’t like you talking back at me.”

Just a few rows of desks away, Koschei appeared to be looking intently out of the window, in the opposite direction from where the altercation was happening. A few students were starting to come in now, but they hardly stopped to watch. Most of them knew better than to annoy Torvic, either for having been among his objects of interest, or just because they possessed some common sense.

And yet, their increasing number meant that the Professor was bound to arrive soon. That would have probably been reason enough for Torvic to let go, if Theta’s brain had not decided to pick the very worst time to have one of its moments.

The firm pressure of Torvic’s hand didn’t allow Theta’s lips much room to move, but there was no need for speech to have his thoughts delivered directly to the other kid - wanting or not. “You don’t like people talking back at you because you’re stupid”, transmitted Theta’s brain, loud and clear.

Torvic’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he found himself flooded by an unknown rage - mixed, somehow, with a vague hint of fear. The very idea of being scared by this wimp only added to his wrath, and for a moment Torvic was left to wonder what he would have dared to do next. Then some more sensible - or maybe just more subtle - part of him took hold, and instead of beating the kid to a pulp, he simply entered his mind-space, uninvited and unwelcome. This would have been considered extremely rude and beyond reproach for an adult, but when it came to kids, such behaviours were just mildly frowned upon. Most young ones lacked the skill to avoid doing it accidentally anyway, and some of those who didn’t - like Torvic himself - were all too happy to take advantage of this grey area as long as they could.

Theta was hardly skilled enough to notice Torvic’s intrusion, let alone resist it. Torvic, on the other hand, lacked the subtlety to notice that something about their contact was going very wrong. All he could sense was another hint of that vague, unexplained fear he had already felt a few moments before. He quickly forgot it when he found his treasure, all well spread out unprotected on the outmost front of Theta’s short term memory - the solution for the “impossible” challenge the Professor had left them for homework. Satisfied, Torvic broke the contact and let go of the kid, rubbing his hand on Theta’s robes. “You’ve cried all over my hand, you loser. I wonder if I’ll get dweeb germs.” he said, covering his grin with a wince of disgust.

Professor Trewlrandax chose that moment to get in the class - almost giving the two contenders reasons to suspect that he had waited for the scene to play out to avoid getting involved. From his place on the other side of the class, Koschei did more than suspect, and silently added the name of the Professor to a very private list at the bottom of his hearts.

Barely aware of what had happened, but glad that it was over, Theta walked to his desk, right next to Koschei. Knowing far too well how his best friend was feeling, he gave him a little nudge with his knee under the table, to let him know he was there, and everything was alright. And after all, he was about to get revenge. As soon as the Professor would have finished the roll call - unnecessarily long and pompous, just as every other ceremony - his moment of glory was bound to come.

“... And now that the names of those usual few that had skipped class had been duly noted” said the Professor - he was a fairly progressive one, which was part of the reason why Theta liked him enough to want to impress him in the first place - “I’ll have to ask if anyone has dared try and give a look at my little challenge. Not that I think any of you actually would solve it, but the sheer act of trying would be...”

“I volunteer.”

Theta’s jaw fell as low as his hearts, when he realised that it had been Torvic to speak.

“Sorry?” asked the Professor, quite surprised by the interruption. Torvic was not known for his academic skills - except in the political studies, where he appeared to excel - nor for his interest and participation in class.

“I solved it.” replied Torvic, smugly. “I can demonstrate the theorem. May I come to the blackboard?”

 

As Torvic scribbled, shooting a smug look directly at Theta every time the Professor was not looking, Theta’s resolve to protect Koschei for what was happening crumbled to dust. The tears that he had managed to wipe before his friend could see them started flowing again, a silent, helpless cry that made him feel even more ashamed of himself, and therefore made it harder to stop.

Koschei was uncomfortable - despite how much he cared for his friend, his uncontrolled outbursts of emotion, almost alien-like, had always filled him with confusion. But more than that, he was furious. And yet, lately he had started to learn something about his own rage - that subtle, unexplained underlying feeling that something was wrong, and that it needed to be changed, that the one that had to change it was him, and and that the change was not going to be soft. He had come to learn that he could still feel that rage, while being calm enough to actually do something about it.

“Don’t worry, we’ll fix it.” he said, almost casually brushing the side of Theta’s hand on the desk.

That very moment, Torvic stopped talking.

“Well?” asked the Professor. “You were doing well... what happens when you substitute x with the Klaxipharon’s constant?”

Torvic tried to answer, but all he could manage was a streak of incoherent, choked sounds.

“Mister Forfardig? Are you quite all right?” asked the teacher again. “Torvic?”

Eyes wide, Torvic looked at the Professor, and staring right into his eyes he broke out in a clear, definite streak of unspeakably foul swear words - some of which had not been heard in the halls of the Academy in a few centuries.

A dead silence fell upon the room. None of the students dared to breathe, let alone whisper - even amongst the notoriously problematic Prydonian youngsters, nobody had dared defy the authority of a Professor in such an ostentatious way since... well, quite a while.

Then someone giggled, and chaos ensued.

 

After the commotion had been somehow sedated, and all the students had been redirected to their dorms, Theta finally found a moment to ask Koschei the question that had been bugging him for the last few microspans.

 

“How did you do it?” he asked, with equal fear and admiration.

Koschei shrugged, barely holding back a smug grin.

“No, seriously, how!? He was miles away... how could you even reach him?”

“That’s why it took me so long” replied Koschei, as this was something of a failure of his part, “the stuttering thing... it took me a while to properly hook his language centres. It was the distance, but it shouldn’t have mattered.” he explained. “Eye contact should have been enough. The idiot kept looking at us, he was totally calling for it.”

Theta shook his head in awe. “You shouldn’t be able to do it. None with your... well...”

Koschei’s smile lost some of its light. “My bloodtype. Go on, say it. I know you mean no offence.”

Theta blushed, ashamed of himself. “Well, it’s not like I could be all that snobbish. Everyone knows house Lungbarrow is half way to financial ruin.”

“It’s all right”, lied Koschei. “The more everyone keeps looking down on the Newblood houses, the more I can get away with. Take that idiot professor, for one...”

“I like him.” said Theta.

“He waited for Torvic to finish with you!” objected Koschei. “He’s a coward.”

“He’s an adult!”

“That’s no excuse!”

Theta shrugged. He had pretty vague ideas about how it was to be an adult, but it seemed to involve a lot of situations where doing the right thing was somehow wrong, and this thought on itself was confusing enough to make him want to stop thinking about the subject altogether.

“That’s no excuse” repeated Koschei, “and he’s an idiot. Now, I’m quite sure it hasn’t taken him long to understand who was behind Torvic’s little scene, back in class. But - and here is where things get interesting - accusing a Newblood kid of such level of interference would be a political suicide. Therefore, it will be Torvic that will take the blame.”

Theta pondered about this for a while. It was all too complicated for him - not in the way a mathematical problem was, but in a different way. It was complicated in a way that felt wrong.

“Well...” he said, after a while. “This is good, right?”

“Yes, sure, it’s good” answered Koschei. “Apart from the fact that Torvic himself will soon figure out what happened, and it will be his turn to try and get revenge.”

“And this is bad.”

“Not necessarily. It just means we have to be ready too. Always be a step ahead of him.”

“Mhh...”

“What’s up?” asked Koschei, “You’re not convinced?”

Theta shrugged. “I don’t know. Is it some sort of game?”

Koschei thought about it for a while before answering: “Yes, I suppose it is.”


	2. House rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torvic has a conversation with a good friend. And then another one with someone else.

 

The silence of the dark room was broken only by the soft sound of a slow, regular breath. Any careless observer would have been easily persuaded that whoever was inside was deep asleep, but Pyro’masfelið wasn’t that easy to fool.

“Come on, cousin. Stop pretending. I know you’re awake.”

The rhythm remained stubbornly unchanged. “I’m coming in”, she said to the supposed sleeper, walking into the room and closing the door behind her. To her sensitive eyes, the faint trace of light coming in from the tiny crack under the door was more than enough to make out the shape of her cousin, curled in a tiny ball under the blankets on the upper bed.

“I told you a thousand times. I’m older and prettier, so you get the lower bed. Is it so hard a concept to grasp?”

“Go away” muttered the kid under the blankets.

“Have you been crying?” asked the older cousin, fighting the urge to smile. As usual, provoking him was the quickest way to get his attention.

“No. Go away.”

With a sigh, Pyro’masfelið lifted herself on the top bed with one single graceful movement, moving her cousin’s legs aside to sit next to him. “Torvic” she said, “There’s no reason to take it so bad. Everything’s turned out all right, hasn’t it? You didn’t even get suspended.”

“Only because two of my fathers paid the dean”.

“One of my mothers helped too” replied his cousin, “but that’s not the point. Look, dear, everyone knows it wasn’t your fault. It was a joke, just a mean joke from one of the older students. It’s not a tragedy. Nobody has ever died of wounded pride...”

Torvic sighed, making a weak attempt at pushing his cousin down with his feet. All he achieved was that she grabbed his ankle and started tickling.

“Stop it.”

Pyro’masfelið giggled and went on tickling the other foot too, trying to share some of her lighter mood through the contact without him noticing.

The moment Torvic realised what she was doing, he screamed and retreated to his edge of the bed, a desperate kick missing his cousin’s face by an inch.

“Oi!” she shouted, just as startled as he were, “What got into you? I was trying to be nice!”

All she got for an answer was a low, helpless wail, like the cry of a scared animal.

“Torvic.” she called him out, now finally serious. “What in the name of the Founders is the problem? You can tell me. I won’t tell the elders, I swear, just talk to me. You’re worrying me.”

Torvic sighed again. “You wouldn’t understand.” he said.

“Try me.”

“You wouldn’t understand”, he repeated, “and you’d just get angry at me, like everyone else”.

“I’m not like everyone else” she said, trying to use her voice to help him calm down - but being careful not to get anywhere near his mind, this time, to avoid another violent reaction. “For one thing, I have enough patience to actually share a room with you. You can’t say the same of many others.”

“Our Kitiriarch paid the dean to stick you with me. Because I kept driving my roommates out.”

“Yes, she did. But it was me that asked her to, because otherwise you’d been left to sleep alone, and none of the likes of you should ever be.”

Torvic gasped. “The likes of me?”

Pyro’masfelið smiled - mostly to herself, as it was far too dark to see anything more than vague shapes. “You silly child” she said, “Do you think you’re the first to be cursed with the “gift” of prophecy? Our house and the one of the Jade Dreamers are the ones that suffer the most. Did you really expect none of us would notice?”

“Then why does nobody ever listen to me? Why are they always angry?”

Torvic was fighting not to cry - he couldn’t stand  to show weakness to his cousin.

“Because they’re jealous” she answered, more harshly than she would have liked. Maybe she was jealous too, after all. She was quick to move the thought aside and went on. “Is that the real reason why you’re so upset? Something you’ve seen? What was it, Torvic?”

Torvic sniffed, grateful to the darkness for hiding his face. “It was the Lungbarrow kid. There was something wrong about him. I was... I just wanted to see what it was that made him so happy. I don’t like him being happy, he gives me the creeps. And when I touched him... I don’t know. It was like there was something else. Something dark and malevolent inside him, and it wanted... It wanted to eat me.”

Torvic stopped, shaking out of the sheer nervous tension of remembering it, daring his cousin to laugh at him. When she didn’t, he went on. “I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I think... for a moment, I thought I knew what it was. I thought, ‘this is Zagreus, I’ve seen him and he’s seen him, and now he will eat me.’ Then  a moment later it was gone, and... I don’t know, I forgot. Except later on I remembered, and I don’t like it.”

“Mmh....”

Pyro’masfelið remained silent for a while. Despite being a few years older, and definitely more mature than her cousin, she was well aware that his story was well beyond her comprehension. Despite her best intentions, this thought somehow made her feel like she loved him less.

“I told you you would get angry at me” he said.

A sharp pang of guilt hit his cousin. Although she had taken care to hide her unwanted feelings behind shields that were far too refined for a child of his age to get through, there was nothing she could do for those other senses that only belonged to him. Oh well. If he wasn’t going to play fair in letting her protect him, he had it coming.

“I’m not angry” she said, sounding less convincing than she would have liked. “I just don’t know what to say. Couldn’t you just stay the hell away from that kid? If he scares you so much, why do you keep buzzing around him and that other freaky Newblood?”

“I’m not afraid of those two losers!” shouted Torvic, more to persuade himself than anyone else. “I’m not afraid of anyone. I’m the one the others are afraid of. You are afraid of me too. You don’t like me, and i don’t like you either. So stop being nice and get out.”

Pyro’masfelið was used enough to such outbursts of rage from her cousin to know there was nothing she could do.

Muttering a defeated “whatever”, she jumped down from the bed and left the room. She knew he was bound to calm down on his own, eventually.

  


“You can stop lurking” said Torvic to the darkness. “She’s gone”.

The shadows in the room shifted lazily.

“I know you’re there. Whatever you are. I’ve known for a while. Just show yourself.”

“Ooh!” answered the darkness. “What a brave little child, giving me orders like that. Tell me, sweetheart, are you not afraid of me?”

“I’m not afraid of anything” lied Torvic.

“I see” answered the voice - now definitely out in the room, and not, as he had so far thought,  just inside Torvic’s mind.

“What are you?” asked the child, surprised himself by how curiosity seemed to be keeping his fear at bay - for now, at least.

“What do you think I am?”

Torvic swallowed hard. “If i get it wrong, will you eat me?” he asked.

“Now then, that would be cheating” answered the voice. “I can’t just start giving you hints before you even try to guess, can I?”

“Fair enough” said Torvic, wondering how could he be keeping his cool like that. Maybe it was some sort of special talent that came with the gift of prophecy. That, or he was already losing his mind without even noticing.

“Tell me then” asked the voice again, “Who am I?”

“Zagreus.” answered Torvic. “I think you are Zagreus. Like in the nursery rhyme.”

“I see” said the voice. “Well, it’s not that bad, for a first guess. Wrong, of course, but not bad. Try again?”

The fact that a wrong answer had not resulted in being eaten gave Torvic some confidence. He liked riddles, and he liked conversation - although it was fairly rare for him to engage in friendly chatter. Well, he wasn’t completely sure this conversation qualified as “friendly” yet, but it had not been unfriendly either, so maybe everything was going to be all right after all.

“If you’re not Zagreus” he reasoned, “then you must be one of the Eternals”.

“Yes, yes, yes” said the voice, sounding like it was getting impatient. “That was fairly obvious. But which one?”

“It wasn’t that obvious” protested Torvic, before his brain could catch up with his mouth. “I mean, yes, of course it was, just not for a simple child like me” he tried to recover.

“All right, all right, don’t lose your marbles” said the voice, condescending. “Just try and guess already”.

“Fine then” said Torvic, slipping back into his usual aggressive attitude. “My guess is: Time.”

“Oh my!” exclaimed the voice. “And why would you say that?”

“Because” reasoned Torvic, “I am a prophet. And a prophet is supposedly a nuisance for you, as prophecy tends to threaten the Web of Time in ways that no transdimensional technology could. You chose to appear to me, so it must mean I am of some interest to you. Therefore my guess is: you are Time.”

A delighted disembodied laughter filled the room. “Oh, marvellous” said the voice, “Impeccable reasoning. So deliciously self centered. Makes me remember why I love your species so much - despite all the trouble you cause me...”

So it really was Time, after all - thought Torvic, the last traces of fear erased by pride. If only his cousins could have seen him now, conversing with Time itself in his dorm room. They would have probably hated him even more, but so what?

“A Scendles Penny for your thoughts” said the voice, calling him back to the present.

“Sorry, I was...”

“Thinking about greatness, I dare guess?”

Torvic blushed, wondering if the darkness was enough to hide his embarrassment to the eyes of a god. He doubted it.

“And yet,” continued the voice, “such a great child is afraid of his little playmates”.

“I am not afraid of them. It was you I felt. That’s what scared me, yesterday in class. Am I wrong? You were hanging around the Lungbarrow kid, and then you came to me, and that’s the reason for all the weird stuff that went on”.

“Tsk.” tutted the Eternal. “How disappointing. Can you really not tell the difference?”

“What difference?” asked Torvic, his newfound confidence quickly melting away again.

“It wasn’t me you felt. I’m sorry. It was the Lungbarrow kid himself, I’m afraid.”

“I see” said Torvic, that was starting to get really confused again. “It wasn’t him that sabotaged my presentation, though. It was the younger one, the Newblood. Cousin Pyro’masfelið said it had to be the work of some of the older students, but I’m quite sure it was him. I saw his eyes...”

“Yes” said the voice, “those two are quite interesting. Each one on his own, and as a pair.”

“I hate them” said Torvic.

“Why?” asked the voice, in an almost sympathetic tone.  
“I don’t know. I just do. I just... I have a very bad feeling about them. Like they’re going to bring trouble. Like they have to be stopped, lest something terrible happen.”

“You’re the prophet” said the voice, condescending.

“I’m the prophet” repeated Torvic, as if this settled the matter. “Are you here to help me stop them?”

“Might as well be” answered the voice. “What if I were?”

“I’m the one that asked first” said Torvic. “Have you come to this dimension looking for a champion? Like in the stories?”

“Might as well have” the voice repeated.

“Are you going to make me your champion?”

“Maybe. We’ll see, eventually. Won’t we?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: thanks to NataLunaSans and TheMindProbeBePraised for beta. any mistake still to be considered mine (i may have skipped some change)


	3. Exceptions to the rule

“It’s not fair!”

It was at least the sixth time Theta had repeated that simple, helpless sentence from the beginning of that conversation.

From the screen of the makeshift communication device, Koschei’s smile shone bright and triumphant - if a bit pixelated.

“It wasn’t our fault!” Theta insisted. “For once we don’t do anything really worth punishing, and that’s the time we get suspended. How is it fair?”

“Booing the Othermas play is hardly a minor infraction” observed Koschei.

“And neither is stealing the props afterwards” said Theta, acknowledging his friend’s contribution with more than a little pride, “and then using them to set up a parody version of the play in the school yard. But neither is worth a week of suspension. Besides, their version of the myth was all wrong.”

“Yeah, like you would know.”

“I do, though!”

“Right. Anyway, that’s not the reason why we got punished, you know?” noted Koschei, sounding way too much like an adult for Theta’s taste.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean”, said Koschei, with a tone that said ‘If you were anyone but Theta, I wouldn’t even waste my time trying to swim across your ocean of ignorance to get to you’, “our latest prank isn’t what we got suspended for”.

“And what for, then?”

“It’s all about that trick I played on Torvic”.

“But you said they couldn’t punish us. Politics and stuff.”

“I said that they couldn’t punish us openly, not without seriously messing up the power balances of the whole Prydonian chapterhouse. But just letting us completely off the hook would upset House Fordfarding beyond measure, so they had to punish us for something. The very fact that they picked a transgression minor enough to make a suspension look extremely unfair, is a political message. It’s all about making it clear that the real reason is that other one.”

“I’m getting a headache” said Theta.

Koschei groaned, loud enough to be heard despite the low quality of the audio transmission. “Are you even sure you’re a Prydonian? It’s very simple, really”

“It definitely isn’t.”

 

“What isn’t what?”

Theta shrieked in surprise as cousin Almund walked into his room - the door closing behind her as silently as it had opened.

He quickly turned off his communicator and tried to hide it behind his back, but it was too late.

“You’re not supposed to use that thing when you’re grounded” said Almund, faking disapproval. “Besides, hadn’t Satthaltrope confiscated it long ago?”

“I built another one” said Theta.

Almund laughed. “Well, at least that shows you have some resolve. Who were you talking to? That Oakdown kid again?”

Theta nodded.

“Isn’t he supposed to be grounded too?” asked Almund.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the Academy?” retorted Theta.

“I’m old and responsible enough to be trusted with a speeder that i can ride home every time i want to sleep in my own bed.”

“You’re definitely not responsible.”

“True that”, said Almund, “but I’m better than you at pretending. Some day you will learn too. Either that, or you’ll have to make friends with some kid from house Mirraflex down the hill, and persuade them to get a sidecar”.

“They’re all stuck up arseholes who are too ready with their hands.”

“Language!” Almund frowned. “And didn’t you use to get along well with that Marx... Mags...”

“Magnus. His name is Magnus. But we’re not friends. Nobody wants to be friends with me”.

“That’s not true!” exclaimed Almund, maybe a bit too emphatically to sound convincing. “That Oakdown kid does!”

“He doesn’t count” said Theta. “He’s even scarier than me.”  

“He seems such a sweet child.”

“He really isn’t.”

Almund sighed. She knew that when Theta was in one of his moods, there was little to be done to make him change his mind. Besides, she wasn’t sure that he was entirely wrong.

“So,” she asked instead, “Are you planning to sneak out to go and play with your “scary” friend in the outlands again?”

“Yes” answered Theta without hesitation. “Will you cover for me?”

“When don’t I?”. Almund smiled, glad to see her cousin’s morale rising again. “Just try not to get caught this time. There’s only so many excuses I can come up with for you ‘slipping from under my strict surveillance’, before Satthaltrope decides it’s not all that wise to trust me with your supervision, after all.”

“I don’t need supervision.”

“Yes you do.”

“The older cousins think I’m stupid.”

“No, they think you’re trouble. And there’s some truth to it. You’re not exactly a paragon of discipline. Or manners.”

“That’s not the real reason. They just don’t like me. They all think I’m weird.”

“Oh, come on. Quences likes you. And Innocet too, and Brax, though he may not be all that great at showing it. And then there’s me, of course.” Almund smiled, pointing at herself with both thumbs.

“You only like me ‘cause i’m weird.”

“That’s absolutely not true.”

“Everyone knows that your special interest is aliens and spooky stuff, and I...”

“What?”

“Our cousin Glospin says I’m both.”

“Glospin is an idiot.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s wrong. He says one of my biodonors was an alien, and that’s why I’m all weak and stupid and bad at psychic stuff. And also I’ve this.” He pointed at his belly. “My ‘Wormhole’. Founders, how i hate this nickname.”

“Is this the reason why you kept the one that that bully gave you? Theta Sigma?”

“It wasn’t Torvic who came up with it.” said Theta. “It was one of his friends. Drax. And yes, that’s why. I’d rather be called after my bad grades, than after a stupid hole in my mid section. At least, my grades are something i have some power over.”

“Fair enough” said Almund. “Also, there’s a precedent.”

“A precedent for what?”

“To your nickname. Omega, the lost founder, got his name after he was awarded the lowest grade possible in one of his exams. I wonder if that’s where your friend Drax got the idea from. If he’s the Drax I’m thinking of, being half arcalian, he should have known the story... You should look into it, by the way. Very inspirational.”

“Almund... I tell you I feel left out because everyone thinks I’m weird and spooky, and you suggest I take a boogeyman from before time as my role model?”

“Well, why not? It fits. Besides, I already told you not everyone in this House is against you. Some of us care about you. A lot.”

“Which only makes things harder with the others.”

“That’s true in every house, and for everyone.”

“It’s worse for me, though. Isn’t it?”

“Ok, maybe a little.” conceded Almund.

“Why?”

“Because you’re weird, all right. But mostly because you don’t seem to show any interest in not getting in trouble every single day.”

“I don’t do it on purpose. It’s just that i get bored easily. Everything is so boring!”

“Well...” said Almund, with a deep, heartfelt sigh, “I can’t say i disagree.”

“How do you resist?”

“How do I resist what?”

“Boredom. How do you manage to keep out of trouble?”

“Because I want to graduate as soon as I can.” she explained. “And then, as soon as I’m out of the Academy, I’ll find a way to get the hell away from this rock. I’ve not decided how, yet. I’ll probably either join the CIA, or steal a capsule and run for it”.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“It’s mine. No stealing the idea, kid.”

“All right, I won’t. Besides, I doubt I will even last long enough in the Academy to get the Rassilon Imprimatur, let alone graduate”.

“Oh, you never know” said Almund, “You talk like this now, but one day you may just wake up and find yourself two centuries old, working for your doctorate...”

“Yeah, right. I can totally see that.”

“I can.” said Almund. “Now hurry up and ‘elude my supervision’ before I change my mind and start asking about your homework, as I’m supposed to be doing right now...”

“Yes ma’am” said Theta, doing a very bad impression of the Capitol Ward salute.

“Try to be back by nightfall. And Theta...”

“Yes?”

“Have some fun for me too. Being the responsible one is damn hard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you NataLunaSans for betaing faster than light
> 
> Almund Lungbarrow is an actual character, but the one you see here is completely based on The_Dangerous_One 's almost-OC version of this cousin of the Doctor, barely described in canon as far as i know.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to TheMindProbeBePraised and StevetheIcecube for beta-ing my non-native-speaking arse


End file.
